Not great for a report card.. Absolutely astounding in this photo of Jack Douglas in the #54 Jaguar D-Type and Carlyle Blackwell in the #18 C-Type. Love the staged shot mimicking a hairy corner and the dramatic pilot underlighting from undoubtedly hot lamps placed in the cockpits.
Thanks to Graham Smith and Aaron Barker on the North American Sportscar Racing Facebook group.
Get ready for LeMans weekend!
A few months back Jaguar raised all of our spirits with the news that they would fulfill the original build order of 18 E-Type lightweights (only 12 were build in period) to the original specification, from aluminum bodywork to D-type heads. Recently the team has released these photos of the first complete example of the new run and it is absolutely beautiful.
1st at Le Mans
The Finest Car of its Class in the World: Jaguar
With a record speed fo 93.5 M.P.H.—record distance of 2,244 miles and a record lap of 105 M.P.H. Jaguar has again justified its rapid rise to fame as “The Finest Car of its Class in the World.”
No less spectacular has been the post war rise in popularity of Jaguar in the U.S. where people who enjoy fine craftsmanship and superlative performance are buying more and more Jaguars.
Hoffman
New York
487 Park Avenue • PL 90-7036
Broadway at 62nd St. • JU 6-0664
Chicago
Esquire Building • FR 2-6976
I’m just going assume that this is fake and that photoshop, not neglect, is to blame for this Jaguar XK and Porsche 356 racer rusting away amongst the trees.
Update: Ugh. A few emails from readers and Frederik’s comment on Facebook have confirmed that these are indeed authentic. One of whom pointed me to this article about a German who purchases vintage cars and allows them to rust in his “garden” as a sort of art project. What an asshole.
Jaguar’s original plan was to build 18 E-Type lightweights, but ultimately only 12 were built. In the years since, 2 were converted to low-drag bodywork and one is (currently) considered too damaged to rebuild. That makes 9. For fifty years, those 9 cars had to be enough and today they are among the most coveted GT racers in the world. A handful of workshops have made a decent business of reproducing lightweight specification parts—and even turnkey replicas. Now Jaguar has decided to finally follow through on the original build order and make the remaining “missing” 6 lightweights.
Let’s keep this train rolling and just go all-in on the Monzanapolis races with the “Monza Challenge” film from the ’57 race.
If you thought sportscar design has diminished over the past few decades, this narrator will turn your attention as well to the state of voiceover work.
For the none of you that need a reminder of why the Ecurie Ecosse team and it’s iconic transporter are so important, Bonhams assembled this marvelous video with some little-seen racing footage of the team in various years of competition.
“Welcome to Automotive Paint Supplies, Ltd., How can I help you?”
“I would like any two colors of paint, please. Whatever the first two cans of paint you can reach are, I want those.”